This particular book is #36 in the Osprey Modelling series, showing that these sorts of books are quite popular. These are  probably relatively easy to produce as what one does is provide an introduction and then tie in a number of build articles with some references.

It is nice to see that these books have also evolved. No longer am I seeing a list of tools and accessories in the front of the book. Most of us who get books like this already have much of this stuff and anyway, it is often explained in the build articles what is used anyway.

This one begins with a very brief rundown of the aircraft itself and then produces an excellent table that identifies the key visual points of the Bf-109F-1 through G-14. This is followed by three color profiles and a couple of pages of color close-ups of an extant aircraft. Following that is a set of reviews of currently available kits. Actually, I should amend that to a rundown of currently available Hasegawa and Trumpeter kits as any others are only briefly mentioned while the Hasegawa kits each get a rather complete review as does the Trumpeter 1/24 kit. This is followed by a table of current (2006) 109F/G kits in all scales.

This is then followed by five kit builds, all apparently done by modelers other than the author. Here is what is provided and the skill level:

1/72 Fine Molds 109G-6 - Moderate
1/48 Airfix 109F - Moderate
1/32 Hasegawa 109G-2 - Master
1/48 Falcon/Hasegawa 109G-12 - Master
1/48 Hobbycraft 109G-14 - Advanced

These are followed by a reference page and the usual color chart.

As I read through this, several things caught my attention. Before I go into these, I should say that one of the curses of knowing a lot about a subject is that one will pick up things that others may well miss or not care about.

First is that there was no in depth review of the Fine Molds, or Airfix, or Academy/Hobbycraft kits featured in the build articles. The Hasegawa kits only made up 1 1/2 reviews (the G-12 was a conversion) yet they got all the press. Though the Trumpeter 1/24 kit was reviewed in depth, there was no build article. This seems to me to be somewhat of a disconnect. To me, it would have made more sense to give a brief review of all the available kits rather than single out just one or two brands.

Second, I found it odd that both the initial reviews were considered "Moderate". The Fine Molds article was basically an out of the box review, while the Airfix kit had a lot of additional work done to it. The 1/32 109G-2 was basically a build that used a lot of aftermarket with no scratch building or other things that one would expect of a 'Master'. To me, the G-12 with its vacuformed fuselage would be more challenging. Shows me that these skill level things are quite arbitrary. 

Perhaps this is being a bit nit-picky, but as I said, when you know a lot about the subject, you notice things. Regardless, this is an excellent book on the subject. The build articles are first rate and quite well done. 109 fans will want this one on their shelves to use as a reference for their next projects.

January 2007

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